Nous Research hits $1.5B valuation with $90M Series B
Nous Research closed a $90 million Series B funding round on October 7, 2026, reaching a $1.5 billion valuation as it moves its open-source Hermes Agent into enterprise deployments, according to Sidley, which represented the company in the transaction.
Robot Ventures led the round, with participation from NVIDIA, Microsoft's M12, Samsung, Union Square Ventures, Y Combinator, and Menlo Ventures, Nous Research confirmed in an official announcement.
Enterprise Agent Expansion
The funding will support "Hermes for Businesses," a product tier designed to bring Nous Research's Hermes Agent to corporate users while preserving organizational control over AI systems and data. The move reflects a broader shift in the agent economy: open-source model developers are now shipping commercial products that let enterprises deploy agents on-premise or within private infrastructure rather than relying on third-party APIs.
CEO Dillon Rolnick leads Nous Research, which has positioned itself as a builder of accessible, controllable agent technology in contrast to closed proprietary systems. The company's Hermes models have been used in developer tools and research benchmarks, making the Series B a validation of both the technology and market appetite for enterprise-grade agent deployments.
Strategic Backing
The investor syndicate signals confidence in Nous Research's hybrid approach—maintaining open-source credibility while building business products. NVIDIA's participation underscores GPU makers' interest in agent software that runs on their infrastructure. Microsoft's M12 venture arm has been active in AI agent investments across multiple categories, suggesting confidence in Nous's execution.
The $1.5 billion valuation places Nous Research among the most highly valued independent agent-focused companies, though it remains below mega-cap labs like OpenAI and Anthropic. For context, the startup now competes directly with larger platforms offering agentic capabilities through closed APIs, but with an emphasis on data sovereignty and developer control.
What's Next
Hermes for Businesses is expected to enter pilot deployments with enterprise customers in the coming months. The timing aligns with accelerating agent adoption across finance, software, and operations workflows, where autonomous task execution and decision-making agents are moving from prototype to production.